Blogging Tips

I thought I’d round out the week here by going back through the series of posts I’ve written on my foray into affiliate marketing and answer some of the questions many have sent in about article marketing. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, Article Marketing: The Plan I Use to Bring in $100-$200/Day, “. . . if you’re a regular reader of my posts you know that I’m an avid article marketer. . .”

Some of the questions I answered in the comment sections, some I didn’t. This post serves as a kind of roundup of the series – a place to get answers to most of your questions in one place. FYI, at the end of this post, I tell you how to find all the posts in this series.

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing or Free Classifieds: Which Works Better to Promote Affiliate Products?

QUESTION: . . . writing articles on a daily basis can be tough isnt it? Dont you feel bankrupt of ideas to write on? I mean how can you be so consistent?

ANSWER: As a freelance writer, my brain is a wealth of ideas. I’m one of those fortunate people who can always find something to write about. But you can train your brain to do the same thing. Following are two tips for doing that.

Read/Watch the News: It’s amazing how staying abreast of current events spurs a wealth of ideas. Try to tie what’s going on in the world to your niche. Sometimes, it may not be an obvious connection, but if you are constantly on the hunt for ideas, they will start to flow naturally.

Just Write: Sometimes, just sitting down to write will spur ideas. Many wait until they have an idea to write on to write. I don’t. If I know I have to bang out an article, I sit my but down until I . . . bang out an article. Just by going through the motions, you train your whole body – physically and mentally – to accomplish the task at hand (ie, write an article).

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing: The Plan I Use to Bring in $100-$200/Day

QUESTION: Do you think it’s ok to submit to the big guys(ezine articles,go articles) manually in addition to submitting the same article to Article Marketer? I just want to make sure it’s listing on the top sites but don’t want to be penalized for duplicate postings!

ANSWER: I actually answered this in the post. Yes, I still submit to several directories manually, in addition to using ArticleMarketer, the one-click article submission service.

As I said in the post, it’s force of habit.

And, you don’t have to worry about the duplicate content penalty as it’s really not a penalty, but a “weeding out” device used by search engines. It’s a bit much to explain here, but I explain it thoroughly in the internet marketing tutorial I wrote. If you’re really interested, you can download and read it for a full explanation.

COMMENT: Then again, newbies shouldn’t forget things such as SEO’ing their articles, CopyWriting, Resource Boxes and of course the content itself.

ANSWER: This is very true. There’s a lot that goes into article marketing over and beyond just the writing and submitting. It’s a skill, like anything else that can make you money.

If you’re going to use it, do as much reading as you can to learn about it. And the rules aren’t static, so you must constantly stay up-to-date on what’s working and what’s not. But it’s soooooo worth it, in my opinion.

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing: Is it Worth It to Submit to Thousands of Directories

QUESTION: Have you found a notable impact on traffic using article marketing?

ANSWER: As I responded to one commenter, I don’t measure traffic. I measure sales. While ostensibly more traffic means more sales, for me, the bottom line is what does my PayPal account read at the end of the day.

I’ve almost doubled my affiliate marketing sales since I signed up with ArticleMarketer. That’s the only stat I care about. I think too many online entrepreneurs get hung up on numbers, eg, how many subscribers they have on Twitter, how many visitors they have to their site, how many MySpace friends they have.

Who cares? The only number that should matter are your sales numbers.

QUESTION: I hear lots of good things about article marketing but I don’t understand how an article can help promote your site or blog if it doesn’t contain any links.

ANSWER: Article marketing works because you get a link in the resource box, ie, that little “About the Author” box at the end of every article you distribute. If your article is informative enough, it should make readers curious enough to click through to your site. And, the fact that articles are distributed to hundreds, sometimes thousands of sites and blogs means more backlinks, which means more traffic, which means more sales.

THAT’S how an article helps to promote your site or blog.

COMMENT: I guess my only issue is that my articles are VERY niche and specialized so I’m not sure this is going to be particularly helpful for me.

ANSWER: This is EXACTLY WHY article marketing will work for you. When you speak to a highly targeted niche, you get to brand yourself as an expert. As consumers buy from those they (i) know, (ii) like, (iii) trust; and (iv) who know what the heck they’re talking about — article marketing helps you to accomplish all of this.

No matter what kind of product or service you’re selling, if it’s worth selling and has a large enough client base (which is a must for every sustainable business), it can be profitably advertised via article marketing.

Again, it takes time, but if you’re in business for the long haul, it’s some of the cheapest — and best — online marketing you can do.

QUESTION: How many different profiles or author resource boxes can you create at all? I mean – if you want to promote different sites in different niches you do want to be able to replace links and anchor text.

ANSWER: Using ArticleMarketer, you can put in different profiles and resource boxes. This means you can promote as many sites as you want. Just change the resource box with each article you submit.

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing or Free Classifieds: Which Works Better to Promote Affiliate Products?

QUESTION: I submit atleast one article per day and I dont [get] results like that [ie, make 3-6 sales per day]! what in the world are you doing differently than me?

ANSWER: Remember, it’s the product you promote as much as the method you use to market. I don’t care how many articles you write, if you’re promoting a product that prospects aren’t interested in buying, you’re not going to make any sales.

This could be because the niche is too small, the niche is too crowded (ie, a lot of other affiliates are promoting the same thing), the product is no good – and a host of other reasons.

But, if you’re not getting the sales you want, the beautiful thing about affiliate marketing is that you can find something else to promote. It’s trial and error. But by all means, don’t stick with a product that isn’t moving – especially if you’re actively and consistently promoting it. This is why a lot of affiliates fail at affiliate marketing – they don’t put in the marketing effort. In my opinion, you literally have to do something every day – or at least every other day — to promote your product. Otherwise, you just won’t succeed.

CONCLUSION

This series has been fun to write and I so appreciate all the feedback I’ve gotten. I realize that many will have more questions. Unfortunately, I just don’t have time to respond, which is why I write posts like this and the one I wrote yesterday.

If you’re really serious about article marketing and making money promoting affiliate products, everything you need to be a success can be found right on the web. A lot of it is truly trial and error. So sit down, do your research and just get started.

While planning for success is great, it’s only when you implement the plan that you start “failing” your way to success. And what I mean by that is, you will make a ton of mistakes. But you’ll learn from each one. And that’s the value of actually doing, instead of constantly seeking advice from others and staying stuck in the planning phase.

Read All Posts in the Affiliate Marketing and Article Marketing Series

I started this series in my January 19th post here. To access all posts in the series, click on my name (Yuwanda Black) at the top of this post. This will take you to my author page here on BloggingTips.com, which lists all posts I’ve written for this blog.

This series is covered in my posts on Jan 19th, 20th, 21st, 26th, 27th, 28th and Feb 2nd, 3rd and 4th (today).

Good luck!